Smart watches show promise but still need work

If you believe the technorati, one of the next big things in consumer electronics will be smart watches.

If you believe the technorati, one of the next big things in consumer electronics will be smart watches.

After testing a pair of prominent new smart watches in recent weeks, my quick take is this: Smart watches need a lot more refining before they become compelling products for mainstream consumers.

Smart watches are wrist-worn devices that not only display the time, but also can interact with applications, alert you when your phone rings or notify you of an upcoming meeting.

Although they have their own processors and sometimes include sensors and full operating systems, smart watches are designed to serve as accessories to smartphones and rely on the phones for their connection to the Internet, location information and often apps.

Despite these common features, smart watches have a lot of variation. There are no standards yet for what a smart watch should look like, what kind of screen it should have or how it should work.

Pebbleís Steel and Samsungís Gear Fit show the range of smart watches now on the market. Their differences are obvious even before you strap them on.

The Steel has a flat, squarish, low-resolution, black-and-white display, while the Gear Fit has an elongated, high-resolution, full-color screen thatís curved to wrap around a userís wrist. While the Steelís display is always on, the Gear Fitís is typically turned off and lights up only when the wearer presses a button or raises the watch close to his or her face.

The two watches also function differently. The Gear Fit has a touch-screen like that on most smartphones. To access particular features or apps, you swipe up or down or tap on-screen buttons. By contrast, you interact with the Steel using one of four buttons on its sides.

Both watches allow you to interact with apps in different ways. In some cases, they display notifications from your smartphone, such as when you get a phone call or when your friends update their status on Facebook. In other cases, they simply display data transmitted by particular smartphone apps. When you run a fitness app on your phone, for example, your smart watch might display how long and how far youíve walked.

Both smart watches let you control some apps. You can pause or play your music app or fast-forward to the next song using the buttons on Steel or the Gear Fit. And in some cases, full or partial versions of apps will run on the smart watches themselves. Both devices, for example, have pedometer apps that can run even when the smart watches arenít connected to their companion phones, and the Steel has a mini-version of Yelp that can help users find nearby restaurants without pulling out their smartphone.

Each device has its strong points and weaknesses. I liked the much-wider array of apps for the Steel, such as finding out the time by just glancing at it, and that it works with the iPhone and a wide array of Android devices. But using its non-touch-enabled, monochromatic screen felt like taking a step back in time.

By contrast, I loved the beautiful screen on the Gear Fit, and its touch-screen control was much more intuitive than the Steelís.

But I didnít like that itís compatible only with Samsung smartphones and tablets or that its screen normally was turned off, and it was frustrating trying to figure out the exact gesture required to turn it back on.

Both devices need polish. In my tests, neither lasted more than two days without needing a charge ó even with light use. They both would be more useful if they could interact with more apps. And neither seems to have a killer app, a feature so compelling that people would clamor to buy it.

Troy Wolverton is a technology columnist for the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News.